I think this was asked in good faith, but is unfortunately unlikely to produce useful discussion. The down-voters are right but the original poster shouldn’t feel bad for asking.
Short answer: it’s ok to say “maybe, we have no way to know, moving on” when something is unknowable like this.
Longer answer / topic hijack: as voters there are many contradictions in our system, and important and necessary information is often hidden from us. Doing the best we can might take various forms:
choose government ran by the least-evil people possible and trust the imperfect system formed by the structured interactions of those people
choose government that follows policies that align the best with your values or your ethical understanding of the world
choose government that is best able to reduce harms and injustices, in a practical and realistic way that anticipates the acts of other factions
choose government led by people you hate the least — no, this one is toxic, lazy, easy to manipulate with lies. Manipulators know the longer they keep people hot with emotion the less time people spend learning.
Please do not reply to this with hatred or calls for strong emotion. Leaders at any level can be deliberately evil, sure, but it’s never helpful to dehumanize entire clusters or demographics.
I think this was asked in good faith, but is unfortunately unlikely to produce useful discussion. The down-voters are right but the original poster shouldn’t feel bad for asking.
Short answer: it’s ok to say “maybe, we have no way to know, moving on” when something is unknowable like this.
Longer answer / topic hijack: as voters there are many contradictions in our system, and important and necessary information is often hidden from us. Doing the best we can might take various forms:
choose government ran by the least-evil people possible and trust the imperfect system formed by the structured interactions of those people
choose government that follows policies that align the best with your values or your ethical understanding of the world
choose government that is best able to reduce harms and injustices, in a practical and realistic way that anticipates the acts of other factions
choose government led by people you hate the least — no, this one is toxic, lazy, easy to manipulate with lies. Manipulators know the longer they keep people hot with emotion the less time people spend learning.
Please do not reply to this with hatred or calls for strong emotion. Leaders at any level can be deliberately evil, sure, but it’s never helpful to dehumanize entire clusters or demographics.